


Neil the Real Boy

by blackrose9212



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Fluff, I Don't Even Know, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 02:31:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13965435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackrose9212/pseuds/blackrose9212
Summary: Neil overthinks a lot because he's Neil. Luckily, Andrew is there to hit him and make him stop it.(It's a drabble with zero substance my guys.)





	Neil the Real Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy this.....brief, brief random drabble that's about the length of the ingredients on the back of a shampoo bottle.

For the first time in a while, the urge to run didn’t tickle at Neil’s bones. This wasn’t the first time the urge hadn’t been there per se, because on movie nights and weekend trips and sleepovers it wasn’t really present either. But he knew that if he reached down far enough, past layers of names and truths and lies, the need to escape would be there in the bedrock.  


When he had tried to explain the feeling to Matt, his response had been to simply not reach for it. To just stick his metaphorical hands in his pockets and keep his metaphorical eyes front and act like it didn’t exist at all. Neil knew he meant well, but he also knew that it wouldn’t work.  


Because of some days, it wasn’t that easy.  


Oddly enough, it wasn’t always on anniversaries. From the PTSD brochures the foxes had not so subtly left for him to find, anniversaries were supposedly the toughest days.             

Something about the date being enough to make you remember the shadows and the bones of what happened, even if the memory itself had been repressed. But for Neil, that wasn’t always the case.  


Sometimes, it was any day. Sometimes he would wake up and his scars would feel tight against his skin like he was growing too big for himself. Like all the keys and touches and promises and yeses were pressing up against him from the inside because he was meant to be a shell, not a boy. His eyes would dart to his duffel bag and calculate how much could fit inside- a few shirts, some socks, sweatpants-and wonder about bus schedules.  


Sometimes, he was sitting on the couch, sandwiched in between Matt and Andrew as they watched an action movie. But then all of a sudden, he would feel antsy. He would look at the clock and see that the movie had been on for an hour and half. That he had been sitting still for an hour and a half. He would think about how much ground he could have covered in that time, and feel guilty for letting himself grow comfortable.  


But right now, pressed against Andrew in the new full-size bed he had bought months ago, he found that he didn’t feel it at all. Because every time he got that urge, that desire to pack up and disappear because it was all he knew, because it was so much easier to be nothing that it was to be something, he would find that he couldn’t do it.  


He would stare at his duffle bag and think of how many socks he had and then remember his exy racquet wouldn’t fit. Or he would stare at the clock and then be brought back into focus because Nicky was asking him if he had ever set off an explosive.  


And now, laying there with Andrew in the quiet of the Columbia house, he found that when he reached down all his palm felt were the outlines of sunrise, Abram, death.  


“Shut up, Neil.” Andrew’s breath tickled the back of his neck.  


“I didn’t say anything,” Neil said with a laugh. The clock read one in the morning.  


“You’re thinking way too fucking loud,” Andrew grunted out. Neil knew that him bringing it up meant that he was asking about it.  


Neil blinked in the darkness, thinking about how to answer the question. He wasn’t going to lie and say he had been thinking about nothing because he could never lie to Andrew and Andrew knew him so much better than that. But, he also didn’t want to say he had been thinking about everything because suddenly he had the vague desire to put it all behind him.  


“I was thinking about you,” he finally settled on, feeling more than hearing Andrew’s sigh. “I was thinking about when you gave me the keys. That was nice of you.”  
After a minute of silence, Andrew mumbled something about shoving Neil onto the floor, but nevertheless pulled Neil closer.


End file.
